Honestly, I’m really happy with the ability to just try out stuff with docker and then nuke the entire compose stack if it does not work. I also know perfectly where any possible leftovers from the attempt are (the bind mounts or volumes) and can be certain I deleted everything I “installed”.

Although I have to admit that I absolutely had some issues with containers in the past, mainly when there are two or more containers with dependencies on one another.

Never used k8s or the cloud so I have nothing to comment on that ;D

Depending on what router you use, setting up a VPN connection into your own home network may be the simplest solution and possibly also the most secure.

In germany at least, FritzBox seems to be the dominant router and they offer a very simple VPN setup which utilizes their own domain to initiate a connection.

I personally use a MikroTik router at home (still not sure if that was the best idea…) and they have a similar thing called Back To Home VPN. The Fritzbox gave me less trouble setting up though.

For phone <-> PC I use localsend. If I do PC to PC, possibly even large amounts of files or large files in general I put them on a network drive specifically intended for that purpose